American Beauty 2

What's interesting about the lighting in American Beauty is how the lighting differs throughout, each scene having its own theme and therefore lighting tone to match. In the scene below the key light is coming from behind Lester and this is done in a film noir style, something that can be seen a great deal in Road to Perdition, another of Conrad Hall's films. This is harsh lighting is done as it gives the scene a darker tone by sillouetting the features on his face and draws us even closer to Lester as he is almost highlighted by the light.

This can be seen again here. This is an even darker scene as it is the confrontation between Ricky and his father and there is therefore even more contrast in the lighting. Ricky's father Frank is silouetted to an even greater extent by the light behind him, covering his face making him seem sinister. Also notice how there is a lack of colour in the scene, Hall does not want it to distract from the stark lighting and from the tension in the scene.

All the shots with Carolyn gardening outside are very colourful and bright and this of course makes these scenes appear more colourful and jolly in spirit. However they are also very over-exposed in places and this coupled with the fact they are more colourful and bright then shots in the rest of the film makes them seem unnatural, almost fake. This of course represents how fake Carolyn is in these scenes when she is so friendly and smiley to her nieghbours, she is living a lie as she is in fact quite unhappy in her life.

Something which Conrad Hall uses in AB is a 'frame within a frame'. It is used to show how Ricky is spying on his neighbours but to us these shots become personal as it makes us feel like we are looking into the lives of these characters ourselves and seeing how they behave when nobody is around. Conrad does this in many subtle ways so as the shots do not appear unnatural, using mirrors and footage from Ricky's spy camera. This 'footage' is grainy and has high contrast.

The rule of thirds and the golden section rule are of course used a great deal by this cinematographer, but he also centres characters a lot, a technique not so common. He uses this again as part of minimalism, making sure we are entirely focused on this character and their emotions as our eyes are instantly drawn to them.